Artists generally require a wide assortment of pens, pencils, brushes, knives, and other drawing, writing, painting, and carving instruments, each instrument meeting a specific need. Children also use various writing, drawing and artistic instruments for school work and extracurricular activities.
Artists, especially child artists, having a myriad of supplies, can be frustrated by the task of arranging and storing each instrument. Such instruments are also commonly lost or temporarily misplaced. While various pencil boxes and writing and drawing instrument container assemblies have been devised, they often are cumbersome to carry and unwieldy. Typically, these containers are poorly organized. Often, the instruments are stored together in an undivided box or tray.
An artist or child having many writing, painting or drawing instruments generally cannot easily see and select a desired instrument in an undivided box. As instruments such as pencils and crayons are used, they become smaller and thus more and more difficult to retrieve from the box, making searching for a particular instrument in a box full of instruments a frustrating task. Fragile or delicate instruments may be broken. Furthermore, storing different instruments in an undivided or unorganized box may be messy if uncapped pens, pencils and wet brushes are placed in the box.
In addition, many containers for artists' instruments have been made of such materials as wood, cardboard or metal. Durable containers that can withstand the rigors of being carried by an artist or a child for long periods of time are not generally available. Such containers must be appropriate for different environments, able to withstand the impact of being dropped and other types of abuse, and sufficiently sturdy to withstand opening and closing many times. Often, such containers break after being subjected to regular use for a short time, resulting in scattered, lost or broken instruments.